


broken boy in a fast car

by badacts



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Backstory, Cars, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7865491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrew Minyard learns early to associate driving with freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	broken boy in a fast car

**Author's Note:**

> This is an expansion of my headcanon about Andrew and Cars from [tumblr](http://badacts.tumblr.com/post/147618340852/okay-im-still-having-feelings-about-andrew-and)
> 
> It contains backstory for Andrew, so please read the warnings and proceed with care. Most are just mentions and me covering my bases but there are sensitive topics in this fic. 
> 
> Thanks to [exyfexyfoxes](http://exyfexyfoxes.tumblr.com/) for editing for my wee side project baby and [redketchup](http://redketchup.tumblr.com/) for the info on driving in the US and for introducing me to animal license plates (why, America).
> 
> Warnings: mentions of violence, mentions of child abuse, mentions of self-harm, suicidal ideation, car accidents, drug use.

 

* * *

(-5)

* * *

 

Andrew is indifferent at best towards his foster father, but that doesn’t mean that he says no when Richard Spear offers to teach him to drive.

He’s thirteen, way too young to get his permit, but Richard and Cass joke that no cops ever bother coming to their part of town. That’s not quite true – a patrol car dropped off Andrew a few weeks ago. Higgins, with his warnings and attempts at relating and the fistbumps he offers Drake, didn’t like the idea of Andrew wandering the streets unsupervised. As though the danger out there is all that different to the danger in this house.

Richard and Cass Spear are optimists. It doesn’t explain Drake, but it does explain their involvement in the foster system, and why they let Andrew climb behind the wheel of thousands of pounds of metal with Richard in the passenger seat.

The pedals are awkward under his feet and he can’t figure out at first how quickly he needs to let the clutch out. Richard’s not much of a teacher, either. Three stalls later Andrew gets his timing right and goes straight from first into second with only a minor hitch. He gets a “You’re a natural!” for his effort.

He’s in control but not quite – metaphor for his life these days. He managed to master apathy with a knife, and he thinks as he traverses the neighbourhood that he might be able to do master this particular skill head on, too.

Richard yelps, “Andrew!”

It’s fifteen minutes of remembered training and pure luck that make him hit the brakes. The car stalls and dies, rocking to a halt, while the car that just pulled out in front of him pulls away with a screech.

His heart is somewhere in his throat. He sits frozen for a long moment before he blinks and gets a hold of himself.

“Shit, that asshole didn’t even look,” Richard says, before remembering himself. “You okay, kiddo?”

Andrew nods. When he flicks a glance at the rear-view mirror, there’s no one there. He flicks the key around and starts the car again, pulls out, ignores the shaking in his hands.

He thinks about that moment later. The moment where his self-preservation instincts kicked in. The bolt of adrenaline surging through him, the same as when he looks down from a height.

At some point, Andrew forgot how to feel. He’s halfway between wired C-4 and the only kind of stone that bleeds under a blade, marked to hell because pain is the only thing he has left. Pain, and desperation to be allowed to stay.

This isn’t either of those things. This is fear, the sharp bite he shouldn’t be able to remember. Because people like him, who think sometimes death sounds like a release, shouldn’t suddenly get scared at the thought.

Or maybe it’s just fear of pain he has no hold over. Andrew has no expectations, so he’ll take it either way.

 

* * *

 (-4) 

* * *

 

The third day Tilda passes out before 6 p.m. after chasing pills with booze, Andrew steals her car keys. He’s halfway out the front door when a voice makes him pause.

Aaron, who has a yellowing bruise on his jaw that he swears he got from the big dogs at school, says, “What the fuck are you doing?”

Andrew, himself a Rottweiler, knows that little story is a lie. He says, “I’m bored.”

Aaron, who has decent grades and a spot on the high school Exy team and a nasty drug addiction, knows that when Andrew says _I’m bored_ he means _I’m going to break something_. It hasn’t been a week, but he’s getting the idea.

“I’m coming,” he says. Andrew’s not sure if that’s because he actually wants to or because he’s afraid to be left here alone. He’s planning on finding out, though.

Andrew doesn’t protest. He doesn’t particularly give a shit, but it’s interesting that this is the first time Aaron has bothered to acknowledge him since he arrived with the redoubtable Luther Hemmick.

Tilda has a plain early-model Toyota sedan, parked on the cracked and weedy concrete outside the house. Andrew climbs behind the wheel and puts the keys into the ignition.

He’s been in juvie for years – not much opportunity to drive there. His recall is perfect, but that doesn’t mean the car doesn’t hop and nearly stall when he lets out the clutch a little quick. He over-revs the engine to compensate, so it roars.

Aaron throws an anxious look over his shoulder at the house. “ _Go_.”

Andrew doesn’t reply but he feels his mouth twist into a sneer. He obliges, with a screech of tires loud enough to disturb half the neighbourhood. It still won’t wake Tilda.

He heads towards the I-77, relying on his memory of being driven into the city, making smooth progress apart from the occasional grinding gear change and hopping powerless moment when the revs drop too low.

“Do you have your permit?” Aaron asks, eventually. When Andrew doesn’t reply he goes on with, “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” Andrew replies, hitting 70 miles per hour well before the signs. It’s packed out there with commuters but still moving, cars on every side. Despite himself, Andrew feels his heart rate pick up. It’s a completely different awareness to that of driving in a quiet street, having all those other vehicles around him moving just as fast as he is.

His nerves aren’t steel – they’re pretty much dead. He puts his foot down and dares the other cars to hit him.

“Seriously, where are you going?” Aaron asks, flicking nervous glances to either side of the car. “If you get caught out here without a permit you’ll be in serious shit.”

Aaron’s right. Andrew will be back in a cell before he can blink. He says, “I won’t get caught. And I’m not going anywhere.”

He wants to stay on this road till it runs out. He hadn’t anticipated quite how much a little house in Columbia would feel exactly like his cell back in juvie. A slightly bigger cage - but not by much.

At some point, he’ll take an exit and turn around, go back to the prison he made for himself and the woman he unfortunately shares genetics with. He made this sentence for himself, and he’ll serve it out like the others.

Sick of tailgating, Andrew darts out into the other lane without checking his mirror. A horn blares, sounding like it comes from within inches of Andrew’s ear.

“Fuck,” Aaron says, clutching at the door like that’s going to make any difference in a crash. “ _Fuck._ You’re fucking crazy!”

Andrew says, “You’re a quick learner.”

 

* * *

(-3)

* * *

 

Andrew comes to with blood in his mouth.

It’s hardly the first time. It might be the first time he’s put it there himself, though.

It’s fitting. Everything about this is about blood.

There are faces above him and an oxygen mask strapped to his face. He doesn’t fight them – he hurts, white-hot and brilliant and familiar, deep down at his bones. Probably not bad enough to kill him. He’s been in more pain and lived through it.

He told himself beforehand that it didn’t matter what happened to him – either way, he was keeping his promises. Here and now, there’s no relief and no oblivion – there’s nothing. Death can’t be that different, he thinks.

He turns his head, ignoring the protests. At the edge of his vision, Tilda’s car is a twisted snarl of metal and broken glass.

He lets them take him away, do their jobs. They won’t tell him anything: that’s how he knows he’s won.

 

* * *

(-2)

* * *

 

The GS snarls when he puts his foot down.

The tuner had been so excited when he’d told Andrew the extra horsepower he’d been able to eke out of the engine, all the other modifications he’d made when Andrew had told him the amount of cash he had to blow on it.

Andrew doesn’t give a shit about that. He cares about the feeling of the steering wheel curled in his fingers, the smooth shift of the gearstick, the clutch under one foot and the accelerator under the other. The feeling of holding the leash of a wild animal, one that could turn on him any time. This moment, right here.

He lets go.

It’s like free-fall – unrestrained motion for an instant, until he reminds himself that holding the wheel means that he’s in charge. Then the fear cuts out, and pure adrenaline takes over.

He’s not sure it’s better. It is different, though.

Different from days at school and hours on weekends fetching and carrying in the club. Different from standing in goal and seeing who breaks first – him, or the opposing team. Different from alcohol and crackers and men who follow his rules.

It’s not that he likes it. He isn’t capable of that. But he’ll take it over monotony any day.

When he pulls up in front of the house, all the lights are on. It’s so late it’s early, but the door flies open as Andrew gets out.

Nicky, wide-eyed and mussed, says, “Where have you _been_?”

“Out,” Andrew replies, forcing his way past him into the hall.

“Jesus,” Nicky says as he locks the door and then follows him. “I thought you might be dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“How stressful for you.”

He looks tired at Andrew’s tone, which is as flat and dead as usual. “I know I’m not winning any awards as a guardian, but I worry about you.”

Andrew doesn’t reply. He walks up the stairs and down the hall, past Aaron’s firmly closed door. Aaron is still very, very angry with Andrew – firstly because of his mother, secondly because of the cold hard comedown from his addiction, and thirdly because of the car. It’s almost – _almost_ – entertaining.

“You can’t just go out at all hours of the night,” Nicky attempts. “You’ve got school, for a start. Work with me here, Andrew. Surely I’m better than my dad, so don’t forget that’s the alternative.”

He’s wasting his breath. Andrew has noticed that it’s something of a habit of his. And Luther’s name is needles along his spine that he can’t quite shake off.

“If you want to play at parenting, practice on Aaron,” he says. “Otherwise, stay out of my way.”

He slams his bedroom door in Nicky’s face.

 

* * *

 (-1)

* * *

 

Andrew is so unsurprised by people. The jury, the judge, the team of psychiatrists they assign him, his ‘family’ – they think he’s a weapon without a hand on it, loaded and the safety off.

They have no idea about how survival works in the real world. They don’t understand that no one ever stops hurting you because you ask. They stop because you make them.

The lawyers and judge were kind enough not to put him in a cell, but their definition of kindness might need a little work, considering their alternative.

The only saving grace is that he doesn’t care. He literally could not give less of a shit that he feels disconnected from his own body and ten metres above ground. He’s out of control and incapable of doing anything but go along for the ride.

If this is their idea of muzzling him, they have no idea what they’re doing. He could kill a man like this as easily as breathing. He could kill his own brother.

He won’t. He has promises to keep, shackles stronger than any kind of drugs. But it would be _so easy_.

He gives himself a month before he starts to push. The withdrawal is a little bit brutal. He doesn’t care much about that, either. It’s worth it, for the barest finger-hold he gets out of it.

That grip isn’t enough to do some things, though. He sits in the driver’s seat of the GS at one in the morning, shivering and drowsy with the come down but not tired enough to sleep, and knows that this might be the closest he’ll get until he sees out the end of his sentence. With his concentration shot, it would be a particularly quick way to die.

It doesn’t feel like anything. That, apparently, is enough to get a laugh out of him even most of the way to crashing. It still sounds odd, like it’s coming out of someone else’s throat.

He drops his keys on the floor at Nicky’s feet the next day.

 

* * *

 (0)

* * *

 

(Andrew goes to pick Neil Josten up from the airport because he knows exactly how to hit someone in a way they don’t see coming.

The problem is that apparently Neil is the same. It’s quite a contrast between the man who says _it was too hard to say no_ when asked why he bothered to come here, and the one who says _better luck next time_ with Andrew’s own salute thrown back at him when he reveals he’s seen through their trick.

He is smarter than he looks. Andrew knows that smart means dangerous, but he knew that since the first second he saw Neil. No one runs at the prospect of a sports scholarship, not even the kind of players the Foxes recruit.

The only people who run are the ones with things to hide. And Neil – Neil definitely has something to hide.

Andrew isn’t sure it’s a death wish. Neil, who carries himself like a man with everything to lose until he gets on the court, says, “It’s too nice a car to wreck,” about Andrew’s GS in a pointed tone. Cautious, but not afraid.

He should be. He doesn’t know the half of what Andrew can do to him, starting in this car on the open road and ending with a knife in the throat.

Andrew will be happy to show him, though.)

 

* * *

 (+1) 

* * *

 

Andrew takes back his keys from Neil in the parking lot at Easthaven, and takes back control.

 

* * *

 (+2)

* * *

 

Andrew’s first thought when he sees the trashed cars is that the smell is unfortunate to someone who remembers everything.

He’s not impressed. He’s also unsurprised – Neil has an unfortunate habit of attracting this kind of attention. Petty vandalism is the least concerning kind of collateral damage, in Andrew’s opinion.

He thinks the word _traitor_ sprayed across the mangled hood of his car is a nice touch.

Next to him, Neil’s mouth is hanging open. It’s unflattering. So is Renee’s caution, her kid-glove handling of him, and Nicky’s squalling.

Aaron, furious like Andrew turned inside out, snarls something at Neil. Neil has no response – apparently he’s developed enough for a guilt complex, these days.

Then Allison is right there. The sound of her slap to Aaron’s face reverberates.

It’s so easy to take her down. Hand to her wrist, pull it, force her downwards to the asphalt on her knees. Other hand tight at her throat. She should really know better than to touch what belongs to him.

Renee moves fast, putting herself between him and Allison. Not fast enough.

Her voice is unusually irritating in his ears. Maybe it’s her insistence that it’s _just_ Allison. She should know better than that – nothing is just anything for people like them.

Neil is worse, with his nattering about them being disqualified. As though he can’t think of a better reason for Andrew to stop. It’s almost enough to make Andrew want to break Allison’s neck and have done. Unfortunately for him, Neil seems to realise that that’s the wrong road to take.

He says, “You promised.”

He looks caught between knowing he has a firm grip on Andrew’s leash, and knowing just as well that Andrew could turn back on him and savage him at any moment.

“You promised to have my back this year, and I told you where I was going. It’s all the same at this point whether you want it to be or not. So do you have my back or don’t you? Andrew. Look at me.”

Andrew hates him with every shredded inch of his insides, all-encompassing and disastrous. He says, “Fuck you,” and lets that sharpen his voice into something deadly.

Neil meets his gaze head on, a dare. “Do you or don’t you?”

Andrew has no choice but to take it. He’s done this to himself. That doesn’t mean he won’t punish Neil for it – he’s had plenty of practice with his brother, after all.

Speaking of. “I made him a promise, too. I won’t break his to keep yours.”

Aaron is too good at forgetting, and very bad at understanding. He stutters his way through saying he’s all right, that it didn’t even hurt. Andrew has heard that one before, but this time Aaron’s voice tremors on the edge of being lost. It seems he might be realising something tonight.

Still holding Neil’s eyes, Andrew lets Allison go.

 

* * *

(+3)

* * *

 

Neil stops him in the parking lot and makes the others leave, and Andrew wonders what it is he wants this time. When he opens his mouth and offers money, Andrew would admit that that isn’t what he expected.

Andrew tells him, “I’m uninterested in your charity.” If that’s the right word, when it’s being offered by a scruffy stray cat of a man.

“It isn’t charity. It’s revenge. It wasn’t my money in the first place, remember? I told you my father skimmed it from the Moriyamas. If you take some for your car, you’re making Riko replace what his fans destroyed.”

“Revenge is a motivator only for the weak-willed.”

“If you believed that you wouldn’t be planning how to kill Proust.” Andrew hates the sound of that name _._ And if Neil was hoping to make him agreeable, that isn’t the way to do it. He beckons Neil closer, grips him hard about the neck and hates how that feels, makes him breathe his smoke.

“This is not revenge. I warned him what I would do to him if he touched me. This is me keeping my word.” Andrew always does. He lets Neil go.

Neil filches his cigarette, breaks it, drops it to the ground. They both watch it roll away.

“Ninety-one percent.” Andrew can already imagine what Neil’s blood would feel like on his fingers.

Neil says, “Just take the money. You bought the last car with someone’s death. You can buy this one with someone’s life – my life. That money was going to buy my next name when I ran away from here. Thanks to you, I don’t need it anymore.”

“Your life has a price tag you are already paying. You cannot barter away the same thing twice.” Life, after all, is cheap. And Andrew doesn’t like the sound of Neil’s gratitude – he won’t let him win that easily.

“Make a new deal with me,” Neil says, eyes clear.

“What would you take for it?”

“What would you give me?”

Andrew is self-destructive. Sometimes he likes to open the door. He says, “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

It’s fine. Neil is oblivious judging by his crinkled brow, doesn’t take the opportunity Andrew just offered. Andrew holds out a hand and, when Neil mimics him, still lost, takes his cigarette for himself. It’s nearly dead – the deep breath in to reignite it makes Andrew’s chest burn.

He waits. Neil thinks, and watches him all the while, clueless but dedicated. It takes him longer than Andrew thinks it might have until he says, “I want you to stop taking cracker dust.”

Oh, how original. How straightforward. Andrew calls him righteous and gets told in response, “You don’t need a third addiction.”

Andrew reminds him, “I don’t need anything.”

That’s blood in the water to Neil, a signal that he’s won. For all he starts slow, he does catch up quick. He closes in. “If you don’t need it, it’ll be easy to give it up. Right?”

Yes, it will be. He’s right; and that makes it worse.

 

* * *

 (+4)

* * *

 

His phone goes off when they’re almost to the I-85. It’s Neil. For a moment, Andrew wonders what could be happening to him right now, the memory of him coated in blood in the locker room still vivid in his mind.

Andrew answers but doesn’t speak. There’s silence for a long moment afterwards, unbroken by the sound of breathing or anything else. He says eventually, “Neil.”

More silence. Then, Neil’s voice, tinged with soft desperation, finally sounds over the line. “Come and get me from the stadium.”

Andrew hangs up, already looking for a place to turn around. Kevin, next to him in the front passenger seat, frowns.

“What’s going on?” he says. There’s a touch of nervousness in his tone – Andrew isn’t the only one with a new awareness after last night.

Andrew doesn’t bother to reply. Kevin, recognising that’s not going to change no matter what he asks, sinks back in his seat like a sulky kid.

By the time the stadium looms before them through the windshield, it’s been nearly fifteen minutes, and Kevin is looking even more fractious. Neil is hunched up on the curb, head low – nothing like the defiance of last night on the court, or even the surprise-turned-something-else in the locker room before that. Their runner, holding his ground.

Andrew parks within an inch of Neil’s sneaker, and climbs out to stand in front of him when he doesn’t budge.

He looks up at Andrew like he’s looking at an executioner, his gaze open and raw as though something vital has been chewed off of him. Right now, he seems an inch from bolting with his demons nipping at his heels.

He wouldn’t have called Andrew if he weren’t considering it. He’s looking for a reason to stay.

After a pause, he says in a voice gone rough, “I don’t want to be here today.”

“We were almost to the interstate,” Andrew says. He’s never going to be that reason, but he can offer a distraction as an alternative.

Neil gets to his feet and climbs into the passenger seat behind Kevin. Andrew doesn’t bother to spare him another thought – other than to tell Renee not to bother with whatever plans the rest of the team has to celebrate their favourite striker’s birthday – until he parks at the dealership in Atlanta.

Andrew turns the car off and, into the silence afterward Kevin climbs out, says, “Get out or stay here. Those are your only choices.”

It’s not a reason to stay. It’s a statement that running isn’t an option here, and Neil knows it.

“I’ll stay,” he says.

The process of buying the car is smoothed by Kevin’s insipid charm. Andrew lets him talk, his eyes fixed on the car, and signs the paperwork they hand him in exchange for more money than he’s ever spent in his life.

Andrew bought this for himself with a promise, like he has almost everything else since he turned sixteen. Not freedom in exchange for Neil’s life, the identity he wouldn’t need to buy because ‘Neil Josten’ was going to be his last. Just blood money in exchange for something almost too simple for Andrew to give up.

That’s not a familiar feeling. Neil was more right than he knows: Andrew won’t miss the sugar-salt high and crash of crackers at all. That he only asked for that…Andrew has barely met anyone his entire life that wouldn’t take advantage of him, given the opportunity. It’s a different kind of deal, with a different sort of man.

They pull into a dingy gas station joint off the interstate on the way back to the campus, so Andrew and Kevin can eat and Neil can sit in the adjacent booth and lose himself in his thoughts all over again. It’s easy, right now, for Andrew to ignore the both of them.

He gazes out at the Maserati, all predatory angles where it crouches in the lot, almost brutal in its elegance.

He looks at it and thinks _adrenaline,_ thinks _feeling._ He looks at it and thinks _freedom._

In the same way, he looks at Neil - dangling at the end of his rope but clinging on hard enough to leave clawmarks - and thinks _yes_.     

   

* * *

 (+5)

* * *

 

They leave late enough that Neil’s asleep within a half-hour of them getting into the car, his seat tilted all the way back and his head curved into the seatbelt. He won’t stay that way – it’s too uncomfortable, and he’ll want to pester Andrew into swapping so he can drive for a while.

Andrew will let him. He’s not interested in selecting a destination, just in the feel of the road under the Maserati’s tires and the consuming full-body distraction that driving provides. Just him, in control.

Except it’s not just him. It’s Neil, who wakes after a couple of hours with an indrawn breath, and who looks to Andrew first like he needs the reassurance that he’s the one in the driver’s seat. That’s not what it is, though – he does it every time he wakes up. _Junkie_.

“I’m hungry,” he rasps, even though it’s 3 a.m. and he doesn’t eat much outside of regular meal times. Andrew raises an eyebrow, eyes fixed ahead. “Gas station?”

Andrew doesn’t reply, but he pulls off at the next one he sees. The car needs to be filled up anyway.

Neil stretches shamelessly once he climbs out on the forecourt, careful out of habit that his shirt doesn’t ride up, but without a concern for the way his neck arches and his lean biceps bulge. Andrew watches him, lazy and completely unnoticed. They’re the only people there besides the lone man working the till inside.

Neil says, “Do you want anything?”

Andrew shakes his head and ignores his departure in favour of getting the car filled up. If he glances up occasionally to watch auburn hair shine reddish under the fluorescent lights as Neil winds his way around the store, that’s just good sense.

He pops his shoulder, feeling the stretch of it. He’s tired now, wound down by hours spent in rhythm familiar as breathing.

“Hey,” Neil says from behind him, “Let me drive?”

He’s still right here, steady eyes and steadier hands, watching Andrew seriously but with the softest set to his mouth. Another man who wrestled control from a life desperate to strip him of it.

Andrew gives him the keys.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! xx


End file.
